The Unsolved Death and Mysterious Afterlife of
Television's "Superman"... George Reeves!

Superman died at 1:59 am on June 16, 1959. Not the
comic book character, of course, but the man who personified the
"real" Superman for an entire generation of television fans.
George Reeves, it was discovered, was not faster than a speeding
bullet after all. Even though the initial coroner’s report listed
Reeves’ death as an "indicated suicide", after more than
four decades there are many who do not believe that he killed
himself.
The death of Superman remains an unsolved mystery. Could this be why
his ghost is still said to haunt his former Benedict Canyon Drive
home?

George Reeves grew up as George Besselo. His mother, Helen, became pregnant
in her hometown of Galesburg, Illinois, eloped and then moved to Iowa. Shortly
after settling in, she divorced her husband, took baby George and moved to
Pasadena, California. It would not be until George joined the Army during
World War II that he would discover a number of parts of his life that his
mother had hidden from him. She had concealed his true birth date, the
identity of his father and the fact that his stepfather had committed suicide
eight years after Helen divorced him. This so disturbed Reeves that he didn’t
speak to her through most of the 1940’s.

Growing up, Reeves was an accomplished athlete and in 1932,
he entered the
Golden Globes Boxing competition against his mother’s wishes. He did well in
the competition and went to the Olympics in Los Angeles in 1932. After having
his nose broken nine times as a boxer, he hung up his gloves and decided to
try his hand at an acting career.

In spite of his time in the ring and rugged good looks, Reeves was not a
tough guy. In fact, one writer, James Beaver, discovered that Reeves was a
"totally decent person. I honestly never spoke to anyone who didn’t
like him a lot". He began to take acting lessons at the Pasadena
Playhouse, where he met his first and only wife, Eleanora Needles. They
married in 1940 and divorced nine years later.

Like most struggling performers, Reeves took a number of small parts. In
his very first film, he played a minor role as one of the red-headed twins
enamored with Scarlett O’Hara in GONE WITH THE WIND. His other screen
credits included SO PROUDLY WE HAIL, FROM HERE TO ETERNITY, BLOOD AND SAND and
SAMSON AND DELILAH with Victor Mature and Hedy Lamarr. But of course, Reeves’
claim to fame came when he was selected to play the mild-mannered reporter
Clark Kent, who was really Superman. His portrayal of the character on
television became wildly popular and everywhere he went, children (and adults)
clamored to meet him and obtain his autograph.

Reeves loved the public and it was said that he loved the ladies as well.
Many who were close to Reeves say that he was a womanizer, breaking the hearts
of many of the actresses that he worked with. Rumor also had it that he became
involved with a number of prominent married women like the wives of film
executives and other actors. It is believed that one of these affairs may have
led to his death!

In the three months before his death, Reeves was involved in three
mysterious automobile mishaps that almost killed him. The first time, his car
was nearly crushed by two trucks on the freeway. Another time, a speeding car
nearly killed him, but he survived thanks to his quick, athletic reflexes. The
third time, Reeves’ brakes failed on a narrow, twisting road. All of the
brake fluid, it was discovered, was gone from the hydraulic system, in spite
of the fact that an examination by a mechanic found the system was in perfect
working order.

"When the mechanic suggested that someone had pumped out the fluid,
George dismissed the notion," said Arthur Weissman, Reeves’ best friend
and business manager. Weissman always remained convinced that his friend had
been murdered. He tried to convince Reeves that he needed to be careful but
Reeves brushed off the warnings.

About a month later, he began to receive death threats on his unlisted
telephone line. Most of them came late at night and there were sometimes 20 or
more each day. Often, whoever was calling would simply hang up when he
answered. They said nothing, but after a few graphic and detailed threats
followed,
Reeves knew it was the same person. Nervous after the near-misses in his car,
Reeves filed a report with the Beverly Hills Police Department and a complaint
with the Los Angeles District Attorney’s Office. He even went so far as to
suggest a suspect, a woman named Toni Mannix.

It was never explained why Reeves openly pointed the finger at Toni. The
Hollywood gossip columnists had linked the two romantically for some time, but
their relationship was never a public one. They were a secret couple, as
Reeves was engaged to Lenore Lemmon and Toni was married to a man named Eddie
Mannix, the vice president of Loew’s Theatres, Inc. and a former studio
executive at MGM. According to Reeves’ friend Arthur Weissman, it was no
secret that Eddie Mannix was disliked by everyone and was an uncouth and
despicable man. He also believed that Mannix was responsible for the threats
and attempts on Reeves’ life.

The D.A.’s office investigated Reeves’ complaint and it was soon
discovered that both Toni and George were receiving telephone threats and
crank calls. When that was disclosed, many people assumed that it was Eddie
Mannix who had instigated the calls through employees or hired thuds.

Weissman believed that Mannix was behind Reeve’s near-fatal auto crashes
as well. In the film and theater business, Mannix had access to a lot of
people outside of the general public. For a price, these men could maneuver
two trucks close together on the highway, or could drain the brake fluid from
someone’s car. Furthermore, he was sure that Mannix also had access to
someone who could arrange a murder too!

In spite of these personal crises, Reeves was on a professional high. He
was not in any way despondent and in fact, had much to live for. Things were
certainly going his way and offerings were pouring in to cash in on his
Superman celebrity status. Just three days after his death, he was to have
returned to the boxing ring with light heavyweight champion, Archie Moore. The
exhibition match was to be played on television so that viewers across the
country could tune in to see Superman beat the champ! Reeves told reporters
that the "Archie Moore fight will be the highlight of my life".

After the fight, he was going to marry his fiancée, Lenore
Lemmon, an attractive brunette and former New York socialite. They were to
honeymoon in Spain and then go to Australia for six weeks, where Reeves
would pick up over $20,000 for public appearances as Superman. The series
had just been sold to an Australian television network and local viewers
were demanding to meet
the "man of steel".

Reeves then planned to return to Hollywood later in the year and star in a
feature film that he would direct. He was then scheduled to shoot more
episodes of Superman for syndication and with a hefty salary increase. This
was not the sort of future that would cause a man to commit suicide. It could
even be said that George Reeves had everything to live for.

But it all came to an end on June 16. Around 6:30 that evening, dinner was
served at the Benedict Canyon home. Lenore Lemmon had prepared it for Reeves
and guest Robert Condon, a writer who was there to do an article on Reeves and
the upcoming exhibition with Archie Moore. After dinner, they settled down in
the living room to watch television. About midnight, everyone went to bed.

Around 1:00 or 1:30 am, a friend of Lenore and Reeves, Carol Von Ronkel,
came by the house with another friend, William Bliss. Even though the house
was the frequent site of parties and entertaining, Reeves had an unspoken rule
that he did not want guests after midnight. However, Von Ronkel and Bliss
banged on the door until Lenore got up and let them in. George also got up and
came downstairs in his bathrobe. He yelled at them for showing up so late at
night.

Lenore calmed him down and a few minutes later, he poured a nightcap and
then went back upstairs to his room. At that point, the other witnesses
present stated that Lenore said something like, "well, he’s sulking...
he’ll probably go up to his room and shoot himself!"

Moments later, a shot rang out in the quiet of the house! George Reeves,
television’s Superman, was dead.

The Beverly Hills Police report of the incident states that while
entertaining his fiancee and three others in his home, Reeves suddenly, and
without explanation, left the room and impulsively committed suicide. He went
up to his bedroom, they said, placed a pistol in his right ear and pulled the
trigger.

Even though he believed his friend was murdered, Arthur Weissman
surprisingly did not dispute this sequence of events. He said that this was
just how it happened but that Reeves did not intend to kill himself! He
explained that Reeves was just playing his favorite game (although a morbid
one, in my opinion), a practical joke he enjoyed with a gun that was loaded
with a blank. According to Weissman, that was why Lenore said what she did.
All of Reeves’ friends knew that when he was drinking, he would sometimes
fire a blank at his head in a mock suicide attempt, making certain that his
arm was far enough away so that he didn’t get powder burns on his face!

Weissman claimed that, unknown to Reeves, the blank was
replaced with a real
bullet by someone hired by Eddie Mannix.

Reeves’ clandestine girlfriend, Toni Mannix, was an actress and former
model who was 25 years younger than her powerful husband. She was also madly
in love with Reeves and according to Weissman, their relationship was an open
Hollywood secret. It continued for years and then came to an end when George
announced that he was marrying Lenore Lemmon. Friends said that Toni was
"enraged" over this new development and began bombarding Reeves with
phone calls, making all sorts of threats. It was believed that both she and
her husband, who was openly humiliated by Reeves over the affair, both had the
perfect opportunity to seek revenge, especially since Toni possessed a key to
the Reeves house.

Many were unhappy with the findings of "indicated suicide",
including Reeves’ mother, Helen Besselo. She retained the Nick Harris
Detectives of Los Angeles to look into the case. At that time, a man named
Milo Speriglio was a novice investigator at the firm and played a small role
in the investigation. "Nearly everyone in Hollywood has always been led
to believe that George Reeves’ death was a suicide," he said in a later
interview. "Not everyone believed it then, nor do they believe it now. I
am one of those who does not." And neither did Helen Besselo. She went to
her grave in 1964 convinced that her son was murdered.

The Nick Harris Agency, which had been founded in Los Angeles before the
FBI was even in existence, quickly came to believe that Reeves death had been
a homicide. Even based on the fact that many of the witnesses that night were
intoxicated and incoherent, the detectives felt that they could rule out
suicide. Unfortunately though, the Beverly Hills Police investigators chose to
ignore their findings. A review of the facts seems to indicate the agency’s
suspicions were well-founded.

To make matters more confusing, the detectives even managed to rule out
Reeves’ macabre "suicide game" as the cause of his death. The
agency operatives believed that someone else was in the house at the time!

For one thing, the absence of powder burns on Reeves’ face shows that he
did not hold the gun to his head, as the police report stated. For the weapon
to have not left any facial burns, it had to have been at least a foot-and-a-half away from Reeves’ head, which is totally impractical in a suicide
attempt. In addition, Reeves was discovered after his death, lying
on his back. The single shell was found under his body. According to experts,
self-inflicted gunshot wounds usually propel the victim forward and away from
the expended bullet casing.

Detective Speriglio made a careful examination of the police report and
noticed that the bullet wound was described as "irregular". So, the
agency reconstructed the bullet entry and exit. The slug had exited Reeves’
head and was found lodged in the ceiling. His head, at the moment of death,
would have had to have been twisted, making a self-inflicted shot improbable.
Speriglio suspected that an intruder had entered Reeves’ room and that the
actor had found his gun. A struggle had followed and Reeves was shot. The
intruder then escaped from the house unnoticed.

While interesting, this theory does not explain why the gun (normally
loaded with blanks) had a bullet in it and how the intruder escaped from the
house with other people inside.

Regardless, there is another discrepancy with the police report. It stated
that Reeves had pulled the trigger of the gun with his right hand. Prior to
his death, Reeves had been in a terrible auto accident. His Jaguar had hit an
oil slick in the Hollywood Hills and had crashed into a brick wall. Reeves
later filed a personal injury claim in Los Angeles Superior Court asking for a
half-million dollars in damages... because his right hand was disabled!

But just how disabled was it? If Reeves could fight Archie Moore in an
exhibition match, then surely he could have pulled the trigger on a pistol.

Regardless of whether or not he killed himself, it was obvious that Reeves’
death was never properly investigated. Police investigators never even
bothered to take fingerprints at the scene and people like Arthur Weissman
believed that they were pressured to make it an "open and shut" case.
George Reeves, according to the official findings, had committed suicide. But
did he really?

We will never know for sure. In 1961, Reeves’ body was exhumed and
cremated, forever destroying whatever evidence was left behind. The death of
George Reeves will always remain another unsolved Hollywood mystery.

Could this be why ghostly phenomena has been reported at the former Reeves
house ever since? Many believe that the ghostly appearances by the actor lend
credence to the idea that he was murdered. Over the years, occupants of the
house have been plagued by not only the sound of a single gunshot that echoes
in the darkness, but strange lights and even the apparition of George Reeves!

After Reeves’ death, realtors attempted to sell the house
to settle the actor’s estate. Unfortunately though, they had trouble.
Occupants would not stay long because they would report inexplicable noises
in the upstairs bedroom where George had been killed. When they would go to
investigate the sounds, they would find the room was not as they had left
it. Often, the bedding would be torn off, clothing would be strewn about and
some reported the ominous odor of gunpowder in the air. One tenant also reported that his
German Shepherd would stand in the doorway of the room and would bark
furiously as though he could see something his owner’s could not. There is
also documentation of an extraordinary occurrence when two Los Angeles
sheriffs were assigned to watch the house after neighbors reported hearing
screams, gunshots, and lights going on and off during the night.

New occupants moved out quickly, becoming completely unnerved after
encountering Reeves’ ghost, decked out in his Superman costume! The first
couple who spotted him were not the first, nor the last, to see him either.
Many later residents saw him too and one couple became so frightened that they
moved out of the house the same night. Later, the ghost was even reported on
the front lawn by neighboring residents.

In the 1980’s, while the house was being used as a set for a television
show, the ghost made another startling appearance. He was seen by several of
the actors and crew members before abruptly vanishing... creating yet another
mystery in this strange and convoluted case!